ABSTRACT
William Cooke-Taylor was an Irish writer, liberal journalist, historian, and Anti-Corn Law propagandist. Although Cooke-Taylor was a free trader by nature, he also thought that better designed products created with the support of state interventions would help to improve public taste and hence alleviate social unrest by maintaining a hierarchy of class distinction. In addition, Cooke-Taylor argued that there was little point in having schools of design that would only be 'teaching how to starve for the good of others'. It is, however, a clear case, that they are worth being pirated, and in ordinary matters the people should be tempted to conclude that what is worth stealing is worth keeping. The present limited protection is absolutely nugatory; friends complain of it as inefficient, enemies boast that they ostentatiously disregard it.
